


The Sniper and The Medic

by Masterjedilena



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Crosshair needs a hug, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, More tags to follow, Star Wars - Freeform, The Bad Batch - Freeform, The Clone Wars - Freeform, angry toothpick, medical things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterjedilena/pseuds/Masterjedilena
Summary: Crosshair doesn't exactly like medical personnel. In fact, he hates them. They're always poking and prodding, calling him skinny, telling him he's not good enough. But then he meets the new medical examiner, the smart and kind and oh-so-pretty Joan Vo. And suddenly, he's not only looking forward to his medical check-ups, but he's also starting to question whether he wants to go to war after all....
Relationships: Crosshair/OC, Crosshair/Original Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	1. Bundle of Nerves

If there was one thing Crosshair hated, it was the doctor's.

Well, truthfully, there were a lot of things Crosshair hated. Fluorescent lights, his brothers not cleaning up after themselves, droids, whatever mush was served for breakfast on Thursdays.... But if he _had_ to pick just _one_ thing, it would undoubtedly be the mandatory doctor visits.

Their frequency had fluctuated over the years. As a child, he and his batch mates had been subjected to weekly check-ups. Their mutations were so severe compared to previous clone experiments, and it had been uncertain for quite a while whether those mutations were actually desirable. (Two from the batch hadn't made it past adolescence. He still thought about them sometimes.)

And then for a while they were on a monthly basis. He supposed that's when he really started hating them. He and his brothers were mixed in with all the regs as they continued to train and grow and be tested. Which meant he was evaluated by the same doctors they all were. And they always, always, made him feel less than.

Not strong enough.

Not healthy enough.

Not good enough.

And now that he and his batch mates were reunited as part of the newly-formed Clone Force 99, with only a few months left of rigorous training before their first deployment, the medical evals would be occurring almost daily.

Crosshair was miserable as he sat on the sterile examination bed, dreading when the doctor would finally arrive. He knew exactly how it would go. They would read through his lengthy chart, pointing out every abnormality as if he wasn't already aware of them. They'd then poke and prod his too-skinny body and have the droids draw enough blood to make him feel light-headed. There'd be a conversation about his diet and how he wasn't eating enough. A comment about his hair would probably be made at some point, too.

He huffed and gripped the edge of the bed to steel himself. He was sick of all of it. The tests, the stats, the feeling of a dozen eyes watching you constantly. He had made it this far. His number was on the deployment docket now. He was ready. Oh boy, was he ready. To finally get out into the galaxy and actually do something meaningful. This last stretch of training was just to ensure they worked well as a team, but Crosshair knew they would. They were batch mates; more like brothers than any of the regs. They'd do just fine. So there wasn't a single reason left for him to want to stay on this planet any longer.

At least, that's what he thought until _she_ came into the room.


	2. Doctor's Orders

She wasn't the first human girl he'd ever seen.

But she sure was the prettiest.

There'd been some contractors and other hired help on the planet, especially in recent years as the demand on the warfront left few bodies to fill the more ancillary tasks. A few had been female. Each time one came in, there was endless chatter among the clones about them. Crosshair had never understood the fascination, nor had his brother Tech. They often wondered if that was just another one of their defects.

Now he got it.

She didn't wear the traditional medical garb, or even the sterile robes the Kaminoans usually gave visitors. Instead, she was in what looked like the clone's standard issue under-armor, "blacks." Slightly different material and stitching, but same concept. It stretched around her figure, highlighting both her obvious female-ness as well as some muscles. Her pinkish-blonde hair was pulled back from her face, which was young, but also weathered. She wasn't another posh politician or edgy mercenary. She was something else entirely.

But her arrival did nothing to help his nerves; in fact, he felt even worse now. This pretty girl would be the one inspecting him. Frowning at all his subpar test results. Reprimanding him for not eating or exercising enough. Judging him.

He watched her with wary eyes as she entered and gave him a small but endearing smile.

"Good morning," she said, her voice a bit raspy, but calm. Soft. "I'm Joan."

She looked at him expectantly. He knew he should give his official designation, but he decided to say the name he'd given himself, in a rebellious attempt to show himself as human.

"Crosshair."

She held her smile, unperturbed by his lack of protocol. In fact, she seemed pleased by it.

"Crosshair," Joan repeated, sending a shiver through him. She had been holding a datapad, undoubtedly containing all the sad details of his medical history. He braced himself for the uncomfortable silence that would happen as she flicked through it. But instead she placed it on a table along the back wall and rolled out a chair to face him.

"Well, Crosshair, tell me about yourself."

He blinked a few times. "Um," he nodded to the back table. "My file should have everything about me."

"Everything?" she asked with an amused smirk. "Like your favorite color? What you think about before falling asleep?"

Her eyes narrowed at him, a challenge, but a playful one. He had no clue how to respond.

Before he could come up with something to say, her face relaxed and she pushed her chair back as she stood, returning to the back table. She grabbed a pad of paper and an exam scope. The datapad remained neglected.

"Crosshair..." she said his name again, causing him to fight to control another pleasant fluttering in his chest. "Does that mean you're really into guns?"

She came in front of him again, resting the primitive writing materials on the table beside his leg as she fiddled with the settings on the scope.

"I'm a sharpshooter," he said. That was something he had an answer for.

"Sharpshooter." She quickly scribbled the word down on the paper. "There's something about you. What else?"

He was silent again, back to being utterly confused. Why didn't she just look in his chart? Was this some sort of test?

A pale light came on the scope and she brought it up to his right eye. She didn't let him sit in confusion for long. "Have you thought about getting a tattoo yet? You could do something really cool with a reticule, or a target. Maybe a bullet?"

She moved the scope across his other eye. He tried to stay still for her, even though he really wanted to furrow his eyebrows at the random change in topic.

"I... haven't thought about it," he muttered.

She set the scope down and held up the pen, holding it slightly behind his head.

"Look straight ahead, let me know when you see it," she said, bringing it slowly forward. He grunted as soon as the pen entered his periphery; he couldn't say anything as Joan was already talking again.

"What do you think is the furthest distance you could make a shot from?" The pen was moved to the other side and the exercise repeated, though she didn't seem too interested in it. "Like an accurate one. A bullseye, dead on."

She sounded like the young clones they'd sometimes bring around to the training rooms on field trips. Wide eyes, reverent voices, in awe of the cadets they'd one day become themselves.

Crosshair allowed himself to frown as he answered her, quite frankly, silly question. "It's not just a matter of my ability, but the capacity of the rifle and range of the blast, as well as a whole list of environmental factors."

Joan brought the scope up to one of his ears, now, peering through it. He could feel her breath against his neck as she spoke. "Okay, so you have the best long-distance rifle in the entire galaxy. Perfect wind and lighting conditions. Nothing else in your way. How far?"

He thought about for a few seconds, and then confidently stated, "Thirty-five hundred meters. Easy."

She was looking in his other ear, but he could still see her smiling, impressed, out of the corner of his eye. It made his cheeks feel warm.

"What would be a hard shot to make, then?" she asked, coming back around to face him. She motioned to hold his hands out in front of him. As he thought about the new question, she instructed him to fold his thumbs inward and then curl his other fingers into a fist. Her own hands wrapped gently over his; they were cold but soft, and he almost lost track of his thoughts as he watched her guide his wrists to bend up and down.

"Any pain?" she asked, bringing him back. He shook his head.

"Well..." he said thoughtfully, "I suppose it'd have to be shooting blind. You can still get a lay of the land, use your other senses to aim. But if you can't see what you're shooting at...."

Joan hummed in acknowledgement, moving his palms to face upward, and tapping along his wrists. "Any pain?" And he shook his head again.

"I knew a sniper once," she said in a lower voice. "You know what he said were the hardest shots he ever had to make?"

She moved his hands into another formation, where his knuckles touched each other in the middle of his chest with elbows sticking out. He shook his head, answering both questions, the one she'd just asked, and the one he expected would come with this test.

"He said it's the ones you don't want to make." Her light-heartedness was gone and her face now looked old and tired. "He didn't explain further, but I knew he'd been on the Umbara mission."

Crosshair didn't need her to explain further, either. They'd been told about Umbara.

"I would've known," he couldn't help but say. It had been the first thing he thought of when they were debriefed on the tragic mission. He hadn't told anyone, knowing it wouldn't be taken well, but he still believed it. There was no way he wouldn't have been able to tell it was his brothers at the other end of his gun.

She regarded him with a cocked head, and for a moment, the judgement he'd feared receiving in this room flashed across her features. But then it was gone, and her usual squinted eyes and quirked lips fell back into place.

"And what if you hadn't?"

"I would have. I know I would have."

She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. You have to think about the what-if sometimes. Even if they're far-fetched. Just to know what your response would be. Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst."

He didn't know what to say to that.

But Joan didn't wait for him to respond, either. She picked up the pad of paper, which he just now noticed had a lot more scribbles on it. He hadn't realized she'd been taking notes the whole time.

She handed the pad to him.

"Your homework. Write down some things about yourself for next time, okay?"

She took a step back, as if to make room for him to get up and leave.

He frowned at her. "That's it?"

She smiled at him. "For today. I think you're next on the schedule for Thursday. Same time."

He looked between the paper and her. She laughed a little.

"Try starting with your favorite color," she said with a wink, and then turned to clean up the remaining things.

He slowly got off the bed and shuffled out into the hallway, holding the pad of paper like it was a strange object he'd never seen before. He wasn't really reading any of the things she'd put on there, just staring at it to give himself something to focus on. That visit was, by far, the most bizarre medical check-up of his life.

And it was the first that he didn't want to leave.


	3. Bitter Pill

As expected, the conversation among his brothers the rest of the day was exclusively about the new girl.

"Dr. Vo was already a combat medic when the war started," said Tech over their lunch in the mess hall. "The battalion on her home planet took her in, so she knows how to take care of us clones."

"Did you see the scar on her hand?" asked Wrecker during their afternoon fight simulation training. "She got it from punching a droid... _a droid!_ And then she stitched it up herself. That's my kinda woman."

"Joan's got a lot of ideas for whipping us into shape," said Hunter while they showered off in the refresher that evening. "Exercise regimens, diet plans, even some good team building tasks. She knows more than the Kaminoans."

Crosshair had nothing to contribute.

The four of them sat in the common room of their small apartment as the night started to settle in. They had been moved into these private quarters, in a different section of the facility, just last week. Though it was cramped and cold, they were already getting used to the separation from the regs.

"What about you, Cross?" Hunter asked from the seat beside him and the others turned to him expectantly.

The truth was that Crosshair had spent the day incredibly angry with himself. He had not gained any level of insight into Dr. Joan Vo like his brothers had. He hadn't noticed her scars or asked about her life or heard any of her plans for their medical regimen. He had stayed sullen and silent in that damn room. And now, the one time he wanted to engage in conversation over a girl, he had absolutely nothing.

He shrugged, tying to come up with something. But what could he possibly say? The only thing she'd offered up was that she knew someone from the Umbara mission. But that wasn't significant; everyone talked about Umbara. And he wasn't telling anyone about his homework assignment. He'd ran all the way over here to stash the pad of paper under his mattress, making him late for training, just so he wouldn't have to explain it to anyone.

Hunter immediately sensed his discomfort and let out a chuckle, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "She probably spent the whole time reading your long-ass medical chart, huh?"

Tech and Wrecker nodded along, believing that must have been the case. Crosshair didn't correct them.

"I do hope she addresses your insomnia," said Tech, picking up a datapad he had been doing some casual research with earlier. "And your resulting caf addiction. Not. Healthy."

He gave Crosshair a pointed glare before returning to the screen.

"Ah, don't worry about ol' Cross," said Hunter, still in an easygoing mood. "Joan's a professional. She'll get him sorted out."

Crosshair pouted but no one paid him attention. He did not want to be "sorted." Or treated, or fixed, or anything of the sort. This professional could take her war stories and good ideas and shove them, for all he cared. In fact the longer he was spending away from the doctor, the less he could remember why he'd liked her in the first place.

"She's so pretty...." Wrecker sighed for the tenth time that day.

 _Oh yeah, that's why_ , thought Crosshair as he secretly sighed along with his brothers.

"Did you notice she doesn't use any of the medical droids?" Tech asked, getting distracted from his research yet again.

"Oh yeah," Wrecker said, "she hates 'em."

"I don't know about hate, but she told me they're better for the menial tasks like blood analysis. Only a human can truly understand another human, she said."

"I'm glad she sees us as humans," Hunter said, a little quieter. " _Treats_ us like humans. Not experiments."

"Does she think we have a chance to deploy?" Tech sat forward. It was a commonly known fact the Kaminoans still had their doubts about the viability of Clone Force 99, and even the clone commanders helping with their training were hesitant to have an opinion one way or the other.

"She does." Hunter straightened, his duty as their leader kicking in. "But we still have a lot of work ahead of us, a lot to prove. She has advice, but we're the ones that have to do something with it. It'll be a hard couple of months. But we're coming out of this as the best damn clone unit in the galaxy."

Tech grinned and Wrecker gave an enthusiastic _hoorah!_ Crosshair couldn't help but smirk, too, though he believed they already were the best damn clones in the galaxy.

* * *

They'd all gone to bed hours ago, but Crosshair was the only one still awake. The lights were out but he could clearly see every pen stroke on the paper. He was sitting up in his bunk, or as much as he could in the cramped space between the mattress and the ceiling, and was reading through the notes Joan had made during his visit, while his brothers snored around him.

Sharpshooter

Quiet

Confident

Wide peripheral vision

Long-distance vision: incredible

Dexterity: limber, flexible

Detached from emotions

Crosshair blinked at the last note. He'd been feeling pretty good about himself up until then. Detached from emotions? Was it because he'd said he was better than the regs who'd shot at each other on Umbara? He knew it, she _had_ judged him for that comment, just as everyone else did. But it was the truth and he stood by it. How dare she try to twist it into some kind of character defect. And besides, what did emotions have to do with his health anyway?

He found himself growing angry again, his cheeks flushing and heart beating heavily. Without thinking, he scribbled over her note and wrote his own next to it:

I have emotions.

He cursed at himself. That was a stupid thing to write. He tried scribbling over that, too, but it was still obvious what he'd written. He scribbled harder, until the paper ripped and he threw the pen across the room in frustration.

He took a few moments to compose himself and quietly got down from the bunk. This was so stupid. She thought she had him all figured out, didn't she? She hadn't even read his chart, she had no clue just how different he was and how hard his life had been. How badly he wanted, no, _needed_ to get off this planet and fight already.

He picked up the pen from where it'd landed in the corner, just as Wrecker let out a large snore. He was sprawled across a double bed against the opposite wall, while Tech was on the bunk beneath his. Hunter had his own room across the hall, specially-designed with sensory deprivation measures. It was the only way he could sleep most nights, especially with Wrecker snoring like a Bantha.

They were an odd group to be sure, and they'd already been through so much together. Crosshair wouldn't trade any of them for the world.

He hurried back into his bed, taking up the paper and quickly jotting a few things underneath the angry scribbles. That would show her. Satisfied, he re-hid the paper beneath his mattress and finally let himself drift off to sleep.

Determined.

Passionate.

Committed.

Loyal.


	4. Foot-In-Mouth

Crosshair entered the examination room with a plan. His brothers had learned a lot of things about this new doctor, and so would he. He had excellent eyesight; he could probably count the pores on her face if he wanted to. He was going to spend the entire visit analyzing her, finding as many details as he could. If she thought she could see through him, then he was going to see through her, too.

Joan was already in the room, her back turned, hands gathering her hair up into a ponytail. She had the black leggings on again, but this time with a blue tank top that showed off the slight muscles she had in her arms and shoulders. She turned upon hearing him enter and flashed a sweet smile.

He immediately forgot about the plan he had.

"Hey Crosshair," she said so casually, as if they'd been acquainted forever. "How are you?"

"Um. Fine." He awkwardly held out the pad of paper, not sure what to do next. No one around here asked him how he was. No one cared. No one was _supposed_ to care.

She took the paper, her smile never faltering. "Ah, let's see here... Hm, still no favorite color? That's okay. Keep me guessing on that one."

Joan gave him a little wink while he just scowled. Why did she keep going on about colors? Was it really that important, or did she think it was a funny joke? She set the paper aside without commenting on anything else, which also made him upset. What was the point of him doing that stupid assignment if she wasn't going to acknowledge it? She hadn't even seemed to notice the angry black scribbles he'd made.

"You didn't happen to stretch this morning, did you?" she asked, motioning for him to join her in the middle of the room, which he just realized had been cleared of the examination bed. So much for his plan to notice things....

"I do every morning," he grumbled.

"Oh good." She seemed a little surprised and genuinely pleased. Though she would have already known that was part of his prescribed daily routine had she just read his chart already. "We're going to be doing a movement assessment today, to get some data recorded for Hunter."

"Hunter?" he turned up his nose.

"He's your Sergeant isn't he? It's his responsibility to understand what his team is capable of."

He crossed his arms over his chest, continuing to scowl at her. "You mean, what we need to improve on."

She was silent for a moment as she regarded him. When she did respond, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "I'm sure those opportunities will present themselves, yes. And I'm sure we'll discover a few limitations as well. But I'd caution you against dwelling on those extremes. This is more about understanding what you're capable of."

"I know what I'm capable of," he stated.

She only gave him a little smile. "Do you now?"

Crosshair felt his chest tighten, conflicted. He liked seeing her smile, he liked hearing her talk. But he did not like being in this exam room and he did not like being challenged. And any time he tried to figure her out, she'd say or do something that completely threw him off.

"Okay, let's start with a squat."

"What is your deal?" he ended up snapping.

She was half-way squatting down herself when she froze, looking up at him in surprise. He usually liked getting reactions out of people, testing just how hard or long he had to poke before he got something. But he wasn't doing this for his amusement. In some ways, she had been the one poking him and now he was the one reacting.

"You haven't looked at my medical chart once. You gave me an assignment that you're not doing anything with. And now you want me to just... move around so Hunter knows what I'm capable of?"

Joan slowly rose back up, but he rambled on.

"Why aren't you weighing me or drawing my blood? Or... or giving me a list of foods I should and shouldn't eat? Or telling me I need to get more sleep? Why?"

"Because I'm not your mom." Joan wasn't silent and thoughtful this time, and her tone wasn't soft anymore. "I'm not your commanding officer giving you orders to follow. You're a grown-ass man, you should know what to eat and when to sleep by now. I'm not here to hold your hand."

"Then why are you here?" he growled, though only because he couldn't help it. He wasn't ready to admit she was already making good points. "Because you aren't doing your job."

"My job is to help you do your job," she addressed his challenge with a look in her eyes that made him wonder if he should be just a little bit afraid. She paused, taking in a measured breath before continuing. "Of the people in this room, who has actually _been_ in an active war zone? Which of us has pointed their gun at a living, breathing being? Who has had to watch their brothers fall beside them and not get up?"

There was a darkness across her features now, a sadness that Crosshair knew he couldn't understand. Not here, not in this sterile facility where everything was simulated and controlled.

"I know my approach seems unorthodox," she continued, her voice slipping back into its usual calmness. "But it comes from a place of experience and care. Of knowing what's out there, and wanting you boys to be prepared to face it. I think that's why Commander Cody advocated for me to come here."

With that, Crosshair backed down, relaxing his hardened stance and dropping his eyes to the floor. He hadn't realized Cody had been the one to bring her here. Usually it was the Jedi Master, Shaak Ti, who approved the contracted help. She was nice enough, but she was also caught between the politics of the Senate and the sensitivities of the Kaminoans. There was only so much she could do for the clones. Cody, though, he had formed Clone Force 99. He had insisted the four of them weren't defective, or useless, or unworthy. He had seen something in them.

And apparently he had seen something in Joan.

Crosshair lifted his eyes back up to hers, noting their gentle green hue before she spoke again.

"You can bitch and complain the whole way, I don't care. Just know this. When they give me that paper to sign that you're fit for duty, I won't be thinking about charts and numbers. I'll be thinking about your mind, and your heart. If you can't show me in the next couple months that both of those things are strong and healthy, then I'm not signing."

She let her words linger between them for just a moment, just long enough for her to know he'd understood her. Then she relaxed, too, and allowed that wonderful smile to spread back across her features.

"Now. Squat."

* * *

She walked him through a whole hour's worth of movements and positions, testing his strength, flexibility, stamina.... She did all the same movements as well, claiming she was providing a baseline to compare him to, but he was getting the sense she just didn't like to keep still. He was impressed with how much she was able to do herself.

For the most part, he was focused on proving himself... his _capabilities_. He was starting to like that word. But he also couldn't help occasionally looking over at Joan and admiring her, too. He no longer cared about "seeing through" her; he just wanted to see her.

"Crosshair," she said once they'd wrapped up and he was about to leave. He turned, hoping she couldn't notice the blush that was undoubedtly coloring his cheeks.

She had been taking notes on the pad of paper during their exercise, and she handed it back to him now. He took it, noting she had written his name in large letters at the top.

"This is your new chart," she said. "Your brothers each have one as well. I'll record whatever objective data I can, but you need to fill in the gaps with all the things that make up who you are and what you're capable of. And you need to share it with your team. You know yourself better than I do, and they know you even more. Don't shut them out."

This time, Crosshair let himself smile back at her. He wasn't sure if he was doing it right, but it was the only thing he could think of doing to apologize for his previous outburst. He took the paper and left with a renewed sense of purpose and worth.

And with just a little bit of a crush on Joan Vo.


	5. Sick and Tired

The next several weeks were filled with activity. Even if Crosshair wanted to improve his sleep schedule, he couldn't with the amount of training and preparing Hunter was having them do.

They were more or less on their own now, free to do whatever they felt necessary to prove themselves for deployment. Commander Cody had accompanied a troop of injured soldiers returning to the planet for treatment, spending one day with the Clone Force to go over expectations and progress before heading back out into the warring galaxy. After that, it was all on Sergeant Hunter to push them. And boy, did he ever.

Every day focused on a simulation run, where Hunter would make them start the mission over any time someone missed their mark or made the wrong call, and refused to let them leave until they had run it through perfectly at least five different ways. In their "free time," they practiced with their own weapons and gear, trying to best their own scores, learn new tricks, and just nail down a personal rhythm.

Evenings were mostly spent learning various strategies, and occasionally cleaning up or decorating their gear. They'd settled on some skull imagery and a black-and-red color scheme that not only looked cool, but also made them really stand apart from the regs. There was also talk about them getting a specially-outfitted ship in the next week. Their dedication kept them from getting a decent amount of sleep each night, but Hunter argued that's how it would be out in the field, so might as well get used to it.

Outside of their group and a few protocol droids that assisted them with odd errands, there was only one other they saw on a regular basis. Doctor Vo. Sometimes it was scheduled visits to the examination room, other times she observed their training sessions. If the others were nervous with her watching, Crosshair couldn't tell. He tried to play it cool, too, and only focus on the mission. But any shot he missed made him flush beneath his helmet in embarrassment. He really, really wanted to impress her.

It was starting to distract him.

* * *

After a particularly grueling day through the simulation room, where they'd pretended to be rescuing hostages from a temple on the forest moon of Endor, the four of them lay panting and sweating on the tile floor of the locker room. Tired, but satisfied. They were getting really good.

"Tomorrow we're running the Mon Cala sim," said Hunter, the first to catch his breath and stand back up. He started peeling off his blacks, heading for the refresher.

Crosshair and Tech shared a weary look, and even Wrecker let out a little groan.

"Um, Hunter," Tech sat up to catch him before he left the room. "We really ought to take a day to rest."

"No," the Sergeant immediately disagreed. He wadded up his sweaty clothes and tossed them like a ball into the hamper on the other side of the locker. "War doesn't rest, and neither should we."

"Actually, we should."

Tech rose to his feet, his face screwed up in what they all recognized as a sign he was about to info-dump. Crosshair and Wrecker started to get up as well, knowing this would be too good to watch from the floor. Hunter had proven himself to be a capable leader, but he wasn't perfect. And now was the first time one of them was challenging him.

"According to leading studies, on both human and humanoid bodies, rest is a critical part to ensuring continued performance. It is essential that our bodies have time to recover and repair before we push them again."

Hunter had his arms folded over his bare chest. "Is that so?"

It was more of a rhetorical question, but Tech took it as permission to really spew forth all the details he had on the topic.

"Yes. See, any type of physical exercise creates microscopic tears in the tissue of your muscles, which then needs rest in order for fibroblast cells to repair them and create stronger tissue. If that repair isn't done, it can result in muscle fatigue and soreness and even actual injury."

Crosshair shifted uncomfortably. He had actually sustained an injury earlier that morning, one that he hadn't told any of them about, not only because it was embarrassing, but because it actually hadn't bothered him at first. But as the day drew on, the pain near his ribs grew worse. Now he felt almost sick to be standing up.

"In addition to that," Tech was still rambling on, "there's the glycogen carbohydrates that are broken down to be used for energy, which also needs to rest to replenish. That energy is needed for both physical and mental performance. However, physical exertion also boosts other hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which, when they are overproduced through over-exercise, can interfere with getting quality sleep. So a double-whammy."

Tech seemed ready to continue making points but Hunter finally held up a hand.

"Okay, okay, Tech. I get it. I _know_ it's important. But we're not always going to have the luxury of taking days off once we're out of here. I don't want us getting used to doing whatever we want whenever we feel like it."

Wrecker groaned loudly. "What do you mean? We haven't done _anything_ we've wanted to do. We don't get to pick the sims. We can't go to bed without your permission. If anyone's doing whatever they want whenever they feel like it, it's you."

Hunter's eyes flashed dangerously and he pointed an angry finger up at his large brother. "That's not true, Wrecker, and you know it. I'm busting my ass off, same as all you. You don't think I want to take a break too? My head hurts all the time now. There's no relief anymore, just constant... stimulation...."

His voice petered out with a heavy sigh. The three of them looked amongst each other but said nothing. Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose in thought for a moment. "I just... I want us to be prepared. All those stories we hear, from Cody and Joan and everyone, about what it's really like out there.... Brothers, the galaxy _needs_ us. We need to be the best."

Tech nodded his head sympathetically. "We understand, Hunter. We know you're working hard. All I'm saying is if we want to be the best, we have to take what breaks we can get. While we can still get them. Otherwise, we risk running ourselves into the ground before we've even had the change to get out and help anyone."

Hunter chewed it over before conceding, just a little bit. "Fine, we can take the rest of the evening. I won't open the strategy manuals, and it'll be lights about by 8."

Wrecker let out a satisfied holler, starting to head for the showers himself. But Tech looked at him suspiciously.

"And tomorrow...?"

Hunter chuckled darkly. "Oh we're still running the Mon Cala sim. I've been looking forward to that one all week. You boys will be fine."

The Sergeant clapped Crosshair on the back as he turned to leave, causing the sniper to immediately double over in pain. He'd been quiet the whole argument, despite having many points to contribute himself. The pain in his abdomen had become too much. All he could do was focus on his breathing.

"Oh _kriff_ ," Hunter cursed, catching him by the shoulder.

"Cross, are you injured?" Tech scurried over, concerned. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm fine," Crosshair spat out. He shook Hunter's grip off and mustered up whatever strength he could to stand up straight again. He was _not_ giving them any reason to ask what had happened. "I just pulled a muscle but I'm fine. It's nothing."

Tech was trying to catch Hunter's eye, mostly likely to continue arguing against tomorrow's training now that a new reason had presented itself. But Wrecker spoke up first.

"You should see Joan," he suggested.

"I'm fine," Crosshair growled again. He definitely didn't want _her_ to know about the injury, either.

"Just go," Hunter huffed. "Even if you are fine, at least you get to see her."

Crosshair looked back to find the three of them all had knowing smirks on their faces. He wanted to punch them, but he also couldn't argue. It would be nice to see her.

Even if she was the reason he'd gotten himself injured.


End file.
